Smart Centres Index
Smart Centres Index
The Smart Centres Index (SCI) was developed as part of our Distributed Futures programme and is an initiative to track the development of technology and financial centres across the world in their support for and readiness for new technology applications. It aims to help investors, governments, and regulators track the attractiveness of technology centres for new technologies and products by measuring how attuned centres and their regulatory systems are to attracting innovation and growth in Science, Technology, Energy Systems, Machine Learning, Distributed Ledgers, and Fintech.
The sixth edition of the Smart Centres Index was published on 22 November 2022. SCI 6 rates the innovation and technology offerings of leading commercial centres, tracking their ability to create, develop, and deploy technology.
The SCI is a factor assessment index, combining a number of instrumental factors - data measures drawn from a range of data providers across the world - and assessments given by business and finance professionals of three dimensions related to innovation and technology in major commercial and financial centres:
- Innovation Support - the support provided by regulatory and other systems to innovation and technology in a centre.
- Creative Intensity - the intensity of technology and innovation services and opportunities in a centre.
- Delivery Capability - the quality of the technology and innovation work that is taking place in a centre.
131 commercial and financial centres were researched for SCI 5 of which 75 are included in the index. SCI 6 was compiled using 138 instrumental factors. These quantitative measures are provided by third parties including the World Bank, The Economist Intelligence Unit, the OECD, and the United Nations.
The instrumental factors are combined with financial centre assessments provided by respondents to the SCI online questionnaire. SCI 6 uses 1,725 assessments provided by 269 respondents.
SCI 6 Results
- Leading US centres show a strong performance and Asia/Pacific centres are generally improving in the index, having lagged behind in previous editions of the SCI.
- New York maintained its first position in the index, with London second.
- Los Angeles and San Francisco overtook Hong Kong.
- Five Western European centres feature in the top 10, with three from the US. Singapore joins Hong Kong in the top 10 among Asia/Pacific centres.
- Following an average increase of 2.3% in ratings in SCI 5, the average rating in SCI 6 fell by 4.17% and only four centres rose in the SCI 6 ratings.
- Seven centres rose 10 or more places in the rankings in SCI 6, while just two centres fell 10 or more places.